A Delicate Condition
by RavynneRune
Summary: After the horrible events which transpired at Deraa, Lawrence finds himself in a peculiar situation... Ali/Lawrence. Rape. Mpreg. Rated M. R&R appreciated.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer**: this story will, in the advent of time, encompass themes of slash, rape and male pregnancy... oh my :3

Own nothing except T.E Lawrence's height... we're both 5'5'' ya see ;3

**Summary**: After Lawrence's rape at Deraa... if he should find himself pregnant then this is what I say happens next... read... enjoy... and R&R appreciated... Flames will NOT be appreciated...

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Prologue

**A Delicate Condition**

"What I owe you is beyond evaluation."

The feeling which the Prince of Mecca uttered this simmered by the time the last few words parted his lips. Whether T.E. Lawrence heard Feisal or not, the English Colonel's back seemed irrevocably turned on the Arab revolt. The horror of Deraa and his horrific transformation left Lawrence the withered shell of a man he had once believed to be indestructible; he, like the remains of his Bedouin forces, grossly overestimated him.

By the time he reached the staircase his head whirled. His mind was foggy at best, filled as if by the all-pervasive stench of Turkish tobacco, the same smell of a certain Turkish general with his filthy hands on Lawrence's skin, his breath hot on his cheek.

With that thought still fresh in his memory, Lawrence felt his stomach give a dry heave. He'd climbed approximately eight steps before he had to stop and sit down. Ever since Daud's death, he'd learned it was impossible to cry. Were he not devoid of emotions, he would cry, right here in the center of Damascus inside the British embassy. He'd snivel and sniff and wipe his nose on the back of his hands and make an all around pathetic exhibition of himself. Let Lowell Thomas know that _this_ was the real Lawrence of Arabia, the _real_ Uncrowned King of Arabia: ravished then cast off like yesterday's clothes.

"You look bloody awful, sir," Brighton assessed, standing on the step just above where Lawrence was sitting. "You're liable to go off like a landmine if you're not careful."

"It's nothing, just this blistering air," Lawrence lied curtly.

Ten seconds passed in stony silence when, with a sigh, Brighton sat on the marble step next to Lawrence, his hands clasped in front of him.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Lawrence didn't answer, just stared straight ahead toward the awaiting portico, sunlight falling over the dusty cobbled causeways beyond. Years could've passed this way, he still wouldn't have budged.

"Where will you go now do you think?" Brighton tried again.

"Oxfordshire," Lawrence murmured, almost inaudibly.

Months spent leading Arab militia and blowing up Turkish railroads left him, amazingly, not anxious to go home. Any decent young man would long for his mother, his brothers, sister, father… lover. No. Not T.E. Lawrence. Thomas Edward Lawrence was devoid of human sentiments. He wasn't sure if he had a home, or a family. Even though he'd kept in contact with his mother, writing letters about his plans for a new and brighter Saudi Arabia, he didn't relish leaving here no matter what he'd said to Ali, to Feisal, to Allenby.

"Will you be going to the Château of Versailles in January, Lawrence?" asked Brighton, slowly. "I would think that Feisal already has designs on bringing you along as an intermediary at the Paris Peace Conference."

This suggestion strangely enough reminded Lawrence of an earlier one made by Auda Abu Tayi.

_Come with me, Lawrence._

_Where?_

_Back..._

"Are you certain you're alright, sir?" continued Brighton when he wouldn't answer. He touched Lawrence on the shoulder warily as though any moment his superior might break. Lawrence should've been credited for concealing it this long, this condition of his, whatever it was. It had been nearly eight weeks since he'd been able to eat without insulting his stomach. Nevertheless, he wasn't about to see a doctor.

Feeling a hand press his shoulder, Lawrence stood up, clutching the banister for support as he fought a bout of nausea.

"It's too cold in Paris, especially in January," he said at last. "The mornings are freezing, evenings foggy and the nights inclement. Perhaps I'm getting sick. Yes, the flu." Lawrence tried to laugh but managed a wry mouth instead. "I'm of the opinion that the Château of Versailles has an excessive amount of steps, Brighton, too many."

He'd sustained this _fever,_ or whatever it was, for longer than befitted a simple cold. He'd perceived it since Deraa, the mere reminder of which was sufficient enough to induce even more disagreeable infections.

"Madness_… madness_," he spoke aloud to himself, not caring if Brighton could hear him. Every time he thought of that garrisoned town, that cold wintry evening that… reminded him of Turkish tobacco…

_Yes, the flu_, his stomach gave another small heave and he attempted to descend again, one slow step at a time. He didn't hear Brighton calling his name or the irritated if not reluctant send-off.

"Stark raving mad," Brighton muttered bitterly just as the hot, Syrian sun enfolded Lawrence in its arms. Fortunately he didn't hear that either, or, like Feisal's words of gratitude, he chose not to.

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To Be Continued...


	2. Chapter One

Author's Note:

Lots of thanks and groveling goes to Magpie05 for betaing the bejeebus out of this chapter :3 She had so much fun editing that I'm not sure any of these words are mine anymore D:

FYI - the events in this chapter happen before the prologue... so this is before and leading up to Lawrence's rape by the Turkish Bey in Deraa. Inspiration borrowed in part from the movie, history and of course, the Middle East, an absolutely marvelous country!

Rating: M!! whoot!

Disclaimer: It's fan-fiction. So obviously I don't claim any of this is historically accurate! Or that I, in some fantastic way, own T. E. Lawrence, lol ;3

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Chapter One

There was an electrical fault in the detonator.

For the fourth time Lawrence rammed the handle of the exploder down and nothing happened. Muttering an oath, he stopped and looked around quickly. He had no time to hide himself. Sixty yards away in front of his well-concealed Bedouin army, the locomotive steamed by on a straight course for Jerusalem, wheezing black smoke into the air. At least two hundred armed Turks were on board and if Lawrence ran for it there would easily be two hundred bullets in his backside. The only thing to do was to stay put and look innocent.

As the train snaked along, Lawrence waved at the passengers who gazed incuriously at the dirty Arab squatting amidst the expansive puddles currently covering the face of Jordan; his usually pristine, alabaster robes stained with dirt and mud. Taking no notice of the little toy at Lawrence's feet, the Turks ignored him, unaware of their timely luck.

"Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do," Lawrence said, hands on his hips, contemplating the train as it slowly exited the valley beyond an uprising of hills.

"_Shoofi Mafi_?" Zaal, his companion on this expedition, crept out from behind a boulder, gesturing curiously at the detonator.

"We have a little problem," replied Lawrence in Arabic, and explained that there must have been a loose wire interrupting the connection**.**They set out to work, checking cables, uncovering and reburying electrical lines, even examining the mine well hidden beneath the track. Lawrence finally traced the fault back to the detonator.

"Ah huh," Lawrence said triumphantly, gazing down at the source of the problem: a pair of mismatched wires.

"_Asre_'!" Zaal prompted him, anxiously turning to listen carefully to the susurration of wheels rolling on steel lines in the distance, sounding like thunder before the peal, rumbling in the advent of Turkish locomotives.

"Don't worry," Lawrence assured him, forgetting Zaal couldn't understand a word of English. "_La taqlaq_!" he amended. Finished, Lawrence sat up, pointing at the newly fixed wires. "_La moshkelah_!"

This jubilation was lost on Zaal who tapped Lawrence's shoulder, gesticulating, "_Asre'! Asre'!_"

Looking up, Lawrence gazed in amazement at what had emerged. Faster and much more distinguished than any of the previous locomotives, Lawrence could practically feel the eyes of his hidden army skimming this flashing, metallic bounty from their post. The train let out a tremendous bellow, spouting a profuse amount of pitch black soot into the air.

Pulling Zaal down onto the ground next to him, Lawrence watched and waited for the engine to mount the mine. He felt his heartbeat quicken, breath catching in his chest. When the wheels of the train reached their last terminal, Zaal lay flat with his hands pressed to his ears and Lawrence plunged the handle of the detonator home.

The explosion was greater than anyone could have anticipated.

The force sent both Lawrence and Zaal soaring violently backwards. Debris from the engine rained down. Feeling the sting of iron tear at his face, neck and arms, Lawrence collided with the ground; the impact sent a jolt up his spine that forced the air from his lungs. Something fell on top of his legs, bathing him in a white-hot pain.

Zaal landed in a heap beside him.

Gasping, soot choking his lungs, Lawrence slowly reached over and placed a hand on the other man's shoulder. "_Keefak_?" he managed, his body racked with coughs. Zaal didn't answer. Lawrence shook the man, watching in unregistered horror as Zaal's neck wobbled, hanging at an odd angle from his shoulder.

All twelve of the passenger coaches were derailed, toppling in quick succession into the dust. The blast had blown the engine to pieces; only a few skeletal sheets of metal remained. Lawrence wrestled feebly with the hunk of twisted steel crushing his right leg until, blinded by the pain and unable to breathe, he let his head fall back in the sand.

From the upper valley, Arab gunners were quick to pump bullets into the rear of the train. Flanked by twenty servants and Beni Sakhr tribesman, Ali el Harish squinted with the eyes of a hawk into the destruction. As the smoke from the fulmination parted, sunlight glinted sharply, catching something golden in its fingers.

"_Laa_!" Ali blurted, seeing Lawrence and his tousled yellow hair. From the coaches, pistol butts shattered what was left of the windows. The Turks joined into the fusillade, firing on the Arab factions.

Without pausing to reconsider the danger, Ali dashed down into the valley, virtually toppling on top of the Englishman.

"Lawrence?" Ali took his face between his hands and pressed his ear to the Englishman's mouth. He was not breathing. Cursing angrily, Ali turned his attention to what appeared to be a piece of track lying on Lawrence's leg, barely wincing as a stray bullet struck the convoluted steel, sending sparks into the air. Lifting it up, Ali let it fall back into a pool of water, sending up a spray which struck Lawrence in the face.

Lawrence twitched, eyes fluttering open. Praising Allah, Ali wrapped Lawrence's arm around his neck, his own arm wrapped around the Englishman's waist, hauling him up.

Slowly coming back to consciousness, the artillery thunder and the cries of dying men a distant hum in his ear, Lawrence felt himself half-carried, half-pulled in an unknown direction. Lifting his chin slightly in order to gain purchase of his surroundings, his eyes fell upon countless, motionless figures littering the ground. It reminded Lawrence of Yenbo where many of Feisal's soldiers had perished from the sandstorm of silver missiles.

"Oh, I wish this hadn't happened," Lawrence cursed himself, finding his voice again.

"_Baadin_," Ali interrupted him. "Later."

At the foot of the embankment, where the frame of the engine had settled, was a large arched culvert. Ali hauled Lawrence inside, scrambling over broken cement fragments strewn about the mouth of the partly destroyed conduit where a stream of water trickled forth.

Inside the drain, the sound of their harried breathing and outside gunfire reverberated down the tunnel. Ali lowered Lawrence carefully against the curved wall where it was still a little dry. From this vantage point they could both look out safely at the valley; Lawrence quickly recognized the folly in taking that train. Even from here, it was painfully obvious the Turks far outnumbered the Bedouins, thirty to one. One by one the Turks picked off the Rebels as the desert greedily soaked up an abundance of blood.

"Are you all right?" Ali asked, his hand on Lawrence's chest.

"Yes," Lawrence wheezed. Then, with more conviction, "Yes, I'm perfectly fine."

There was a sudden crash to their left. Looking up, both men stared wide-eyed as something massive toppled into the gap, shaking the earth. Twisted and beyond repair, a disconnected coach hung suspended over the arch, one of its iron wheels still turning. Ali stood to inspect the damage, his back to Lawrence who secretly checked his injuries: a broken toe, gashes and severe bruising along his arms and legs and no less than six bullet grazes.

"_Maashallah_!" Lawrence congratulated himself; he was still alive, amazingly.

"What?" Ali turned to look at Lawrence.

"Nothing." Positioning his legs beneath him, Lawrence stood up carefully. Blood rushed to his head and two shades came down covering his vision. He waited a moment; hand on the wall to steady himself as color seeped back into perspective.

Ali looked unconvinced, "You are wounded."

"Only slightly."

The Arabs swarmed in volleys down the hill. Some fifty Turks lay dead, bodies strewn along the sands. Before a second drove of Turks could maneuver a way to outflank the Rebels, Lawrence stepped out from beneath the steel coach limply suspended by what was left of its chain, and fired a flare into the air; the signal to retreat.

With the Turks struggling, busily climbing free of the capsized iron prison, Ali and Lawrence sprinted to rejoin the Rebels.

The damage to his right foot was near crippling; pretending he was easy, Lawrence feigned interest in the Turks. Their numbers far exceeding the Bedouins, the congregation infesting the valley now was like maggots in a open sore. "Why don't you move faster?" Ali demanded, seeing Lawrence had stopped again. Ali grabbed his wrist, pulling him bodily away from the range of fire; Lawrence winced, forced to walk. "We must tend to your wounds later or die here."

Tribal tongues wailing, the Rebels crossed the last hillock and mounted their camels, shouting to Allah, Madad and every djinn in the desert, convinced that bad luck had finally found _El Aurens_.

It was not comforting in the slightest.

Many Arabs did not wait for their camels to lower their bulk fully before leaping onto their great backs and charging off eastward, retreating to the old fortress of Azrak. Lawrence's escape proved much slower; waiting for his camel to kneel fully, beast bawling with dissatisfaction, before he could find purchase.

"You are fortunate you escaped with your life," Ali said hotly, riding close at Lawrence's heels like a sunspider stalking a shadow.

Lawrence could not bear to match Ali's gaze. Without a doubt, this had been their biggest setback yet. The sting of it hurt more than any other injury, this was much deeper and much too bitter. They had failed to beat back the Turks or to further break Turkish communication between Damascus and Palestine; Arab morale was low, as was the number of his men.

Shadows shifted and lengthened as the sun slanted toward the west. The clouds opened and rained pellets of ice over their heads, matting in the camels' hair and producing clusters of cold rocks. Lawrence did not shield his face, concentrating instead on the sting of hardened raindrops against his skin. Looking up, he spotted the walls and desolate towers of Azrak hunched like an old man in the chill. Lawrence had chosen the decaying settlement devised of irregularly shaped stones as their winter headquarters. Here and there, with the help of his men, Lawrence managed to improve the ruins, but they were still forced to seek shelter in tents to evade the weather; the stone roof had fallen away years ago.

Inside Azrak, Lawrence walked past the _mah'nad_, the curtain dividing the second half of his tent, where he kept his makeshift bed, a basin of old wash water, a small wooden box of correspondence, and a satchel of various clothes. Here, with only rivulets of light bleeding from beneath the tent flaps woven of goat hair, Lawrence undressed. From his satchel he produced a bottle of ointment purchased from a bazaar in Cairo and set about tending to his sores.

_Turkish communication _must _be obliterated,_ he remembered Allenby telling him that day in Cairo, sitting with the ease of a king amidst his court. _And you're just the man to do it_...

The walls of Deraa loomed up like a phantom before his mind's eye; it was the only path open to him. If he could bring Deraa to its knees, every Turk would be at his mercy. Setting his shoulders, Lawrence put the ointment aside. He would write to Feisal at the first opportunity and plead for reinforcements.

A movement on the other side of the _mah'nad_ brought him back to the present; Ali entered the tent. Unabashedly nude, Lawrence crossed to the curtain and pulled it back. He recognized Ali's dark, lean figure standing in the entryway, silhouetted against the fiery globe in the western sky. Lawrence shielded his eyes from the blinding sun.

With marked reluctance, Ali let the entrance flap fall, chasing out the dazzling light as the shadows rushed to dress the Englishman's milk-white body.

"Ali, the answer is Deraa," said Lawrence, pausing just long enough to note the way Ali furrowed his brow. Retreating behind the _mah'nad_, Lawrence returned moments later, slipping a long white _thawb_ over his shoulder. "Every railway from Palestine, Damascus, and the Hejaz meets in Deraa," he continued. "If we take Deraa, all Turkish communications are paralyzed."

Giving Lawrence a stern look, Ali turned away and pulled back the entrance to the tent again, this time gesturing to a few of his servants. They scurried over, eyes turned to the floor respectively as they came bearing cups of black coffee, which Ali took.

"Deraa is garrisoned," said Ali after dismissing the servants. He lowered himself down on the floor, sitting with his back straight, he waited for Lawrence to join him. "It's crawling with Turkish soldiers. You won't make it within thirty feet of Deraa without raising alarm."

"Ali, we have no other choice. Today's campaign failed because we had only sixty men and so few gunners. I should have let the railways be this time and moved on to more important things, like Deraa. Allenby already thinks we've taken it," Lawrence sat down in front of Ali, crossing his legs. "If I can invade Deraa, I could map out the position of its airfield, its barracks and the Bey."

"Listen to me, Lawrence," Ali looked stern. "The Turks have a price of twenty thousand on your head, dead or alive. You would never get out of Deraa with your life."

"Sheikh Tallal told me of a pass leading into Deraa which none of the Turks are aware. At the foot of a hill is a gap concealed by vines. If I can find this entrance, the Turks will never know I'm there."

Ali paused, coffee raised halfway to his lips as he looked Lawrence over pointedly.

"I'll wear peasants' clothes," Lawrence explained. "I'll claim to be the Circassian son of an Arab."

"Do you know what the Turks do to Circassians?" Ali demanded hotly, putting the cup aside quickly. "They keep them as slaves and force them to do their bidding. To them you would be less than an animal and still in danger of raising suspicion; and what's more, you are in no shape to go into Deraa."

"I am going, Ali, and you can not change my mind." Lawrence spread out a few dirty blankets and lay down. Ignoring Ali, he rolled over with his back to the other man.

"Lawrence, please, it is too dangerous," said Ali, grabbing his shoulder. His tone of voice had changed from resolved to pleading within moments. Lawrence looked up to see Ali's brown eyes glimmering with a mineral luster above him.

"My mind is made up," said Lawrence. "I'm sorry, Ali."

"_Hafla_! _Yalla_!" arose an excited cry from outside, quickly followed by the striking of the _tabl _drum and the playing of the double-reed clarinet. Within moments there was a stentorian of rhythmic clapping and stamping of feet, sending heavy oscillations of movement into the ground to ward off djinn and bad luck spirits.

"Lawrence," began Ali, mouth forming another protest. Lawrence hushed him. Reaching up, he brushed a hand down across Ali's cheek, to the nape of his neck.

The _Ney _flute pulsated like wind through the shifting sands; Lawrence heard the breath pass through the reed and felt his body dissolve into a shower of gold dust upon the face of the desert, _his _desert, and Ali's flashing eyes above him, dazzling like the sun. Outside, the dancing of hands and feet subsided, beguiled by the dulcet tones of the _Ney_.

Ali ran his hands down Lawrence's thighs as if in a trance. _El Aurens_, the English Rose, his arms around him, pulling him down into a kiss, as entreatingly as the desert thirsts for nourishment.

The _Ney _had gone and, having risen from their reverie, the undulation of song and dance was back, more pulsating than before. Feverishly, Ali pushed Lawrence to the dusty stone floor, kissing him harder.

Not since Akaba had they come together with so much zeal. Before the demands of the greedy Auda Abu Tayi whisked Lawrence away from him. Ali was beginning to realize that it would forever be this way.

Lawrence was as sand; the harder Ali held onto him the more he slipped away between his fingers.

Pushing these thoughts from him, Ali gave into the ardor of his love, feeling his body fade completely like so many desert mirages. He was lifting Lawrence's _thawb_, barely conscious of the muffled articulations of love in his ear.

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To Be Continued... R&R!


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